Sunday November 13, 2.7km/1.7mi

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse (0.0/15m) to Skippy Lookout (2.7/75m) (WA)

I didn’t sleep well in the busy hostel, with people coming/going all night. I packed up, grabbed a breakfast sandwich from the cafe next door, and boarded my 8am bus.

Most of the day was uneventful; it was neat seeing all of the towns that I had just hiked through from the comfort of a bus seat. There was no direct bus from Albany to Augusta, which would have been a 4-hour ride. Instead I spent all morning on a bus going west to the coastal city of Bunbury, then changing buses and going south to Augusta. I got off the bus and Augusta at 5:30pm, and immediately started hitchhiking. The third vehicle picked me up, and a nice guy Murray drove me the 10 minutes to the trailhead. He was a super cool guy and was actually a local hiking guide, so I got some good advice for where to camp tonight. He dropped me off at 5:45, and I spent a few minutes getting pictures of the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse.

It was under construction so I couldn’t get very close. Zoom lens was helpful!

I had the good timing to cross paths with a couple day hikers, who were nice enough to get my photo for the start of the trail.

After 15 minutes of getting photos and reading all the signs, I started hiking at 6pm. It started off walking along the ocean on these nice smooth rocks.

I soon passed by an old waterwheel, which was built in 1895 to supply water to the lighthouse and the keepers’ cottages.

From this vantage point I had a little better angle on a photo of the lighthouse.

The trail would alternate between beach and bushwalking. When it dropped down to the beach, there were often a nice set of stairs.

The trail markers were a neat blue and gold theme, just like my old high school colors.

About 2km into the hike I passed by the first trail register. Well signing in, I noticed that most of the previous hikers were southbounders and had finished here.

I hiked on for a few more minutes, and then found a nice spot to setup camp at a lookout point.

It was 6:45 and the sunset over the Indian Ocean looked really neat with all the clouds.

It was a long day on the bus today so it felt good to stretch my legs and hike just a little bit, even if I didn’t get very far. And camping next to the sounds of the ocean reminds me of the Pacific Northwest Trail or the Te Araroa!

Saturday November 12, 35.1km/21.8mi

Torbay Campsite (913.5/67m) to Southern Terminus / Albany (948.6/4m) (WA)

I heard noises all night, and when I woke up, there was a large mammal searching the ground for food or crumbs. Apparently this critter is called a Quenda (southern brown bandicoot), and is only found in southern Australia. Neat!

I hiked out early at 6am, knowing I had a big day to get to the finish in Albany. After a couple of km in the forest, I dropped down to the beach one final time.

The beachwalk was beautiful but *very* windy, fortunately the wind was mostly at my back.

The waves were massive, probably enlarged from all the wind over the past 24 hours. There were also some dark rainclouds slowly approaching.

These little guys were washed up everywhere, it is a bluebottle jellyfish. I was careful not to touch one, since even after death they can cause hours of pain.

The view ahead, Shelter Island is on the right, it is a sanctuary for rare marine birds. Cool.

The bluebottles were fascinating, they aren’t very big, about the size of a clementine orange.

After 6km, I left the nice beach, and up 181 stairs.

The view looking back to what I walked so far today. It was low tide, so it was easy beachwalking on the hard sand.

Another view of Shelter Island.

Just after I reentered the bush, the rain started. Fortunately, the vegetation blocked most of the wind, so I only got wet from the neck up.

Apparently it’s always a little windy here, since they decided to build dozens of wind turbines along the coast.

I love seeing these machines, and the cleaner future they represent.

For 30 minutes I was in a proper forest with trees, which was nice as there was no wind at all!

For the rest of my morning, this was my view, just walking east and keeping the ocean on my right side.

Towards some of the tourist-accessible lookouts, the path had been upgraded to a nice boardwalk. This one went on for hundreds of meters…so much lumber.

With the colder day and nice boardwalks, I could look at the views more, since I wasn’t as worried about snakes.

I stopped for an early lunch break at Sandpatch campsite, the last shelter on the trail. I ate the rest of my cheese and tortillas, all my Oreos, and saved one granola bar for the final 2 hours of walking.

The view ahead into Albany, behind the foggy bay

The trail dropped down from the ridgetop, away from the ocean, and entered the outskirts of Albany. I followed a paved bike path for an hour.

The view across the bay to Albany is foggy as ever.

Directly on the trail, just 4km from the finish, was a distillery! I had to stop and have a look. Best whisky in the southern hemisphere…how can I lose?

I tried 3 of their creations, sampling them both “neat” and with a few drops of water, which changes the flavors a bit.

After 45 minutes, I was back on trail, and entered Albany proper.

The finish! It took me a month to reach the Southern Terminus of the Bibbulmun, with so many neat people, animals, and plants along the way.

The weather was still doing its intermittent misting thing, so my rainshell was permanent attire today.

When hikers arrive to the southern terminus, you traditionally go into the visitor center and ring a big bell to announce/celebrate your finish. But…they close early on Saturdays. Boo. I got there at 3pm, and they closed at 2pm.

The rest of the afternoon, I walked around town doing errands, buying food and a fuel canister for my next hike, the Cape-to-Cape Track. I get on a bus at 8am tomorrow morning, and the bus drops me off near the start of that trail at 5pm, so this was my only chance to resupply.

I had some surprisingly good chinese food for dinner, and then checked-in to my hostel at 1849 Backpackers. The hostel wasn’t great, it was loud until midnight and a little dirty, but it was the only one in town with available space.

Bibbulmun Track is complete! I had an enjoyable hike and would recommend it to anyone looking for a relatively easy trail who wants to experience some uniquely Australian landscapes.

Friday November 11, 33.5km/20.8mi

Denmark town Drop-off (880.0/10m) to Torbay Campsite (913.5/67m) (WA)

The Bibbulmun Track has a gap in it, since the ferry across the inlet isn’t running this year. The owner of the hostel gives rides around the inlet for a small fee, so myself and two other hikers were scheduled for an 8am departure. The Denmark bakery opened at 7am so I had plenty of time to stuff my face before I left.

So many pies, muffins, and sandwiches!

Mark (the owner) dropped us off at 8:15, and I hiked into a very windy coastal day.

Within 20 minutes I came to the first shelter. I didn’t need any water or snacks so I just signed the logbook and continued on.

I found a snakeskin on the side of the trail. I hoped it’s over wasn’t nearby!

I caught up to Rich and Ellen, who were also hiking the Bibbulmun southbound. Here is Rich demonstrating the proper use of one of these funny benches. The back board is a little higher so you can rest your backpack on it, taking the weight off of your shoulders.

The weather today was intermittently rainy. It would rain for 5 minutes and then be sunny for 2 hours, and always windy.

The entire day was spent walking through scrubland on a ridge above the sea.

The second shelter I came to was the West Camp Howe campsite. It was 1pm, so I had lunch and entertained myself reading the logbook.

I love a good anthropomorphic drawing.

After lunch the trail improved slightly, and was wider and less overgrown.

All day I had amazing views down to the sea, but I never got anywhere near it. Given how windy it was, it was better that I wasn’t on a barren exposed beach.

The spring wildflowers were lining the trail all afternoon!

Looking to the southwest:

There is a beach down there, hidden behind the cliffs.

It was incredible how big the waves looked, and how loud the ocean was, even from a distance.

Back to the overgrown trail…not ideal in snake-y areas.

Towards the end of the day, I came to a lookout point. Somewhere in the distance along the coast there is the small city of Albany, where I will finish tomorrow.

This guy had his own memorial lookout point.

Randomly, I came across an open granite slab. Going up….

And back down…

The view above Dingo Beach was cool! In the distance I could see wind turbines, which signified the ending point of this trail. And there is also a faint rainbow, which I did not realise when I took the photo.

Torbay Campsite was my destination for today, and it will be my final campsite for this trail.

Surprisingly there was nobody else here. The people on this trail seem to come in clumps, with large gaps in between the groups that I have seen.

Tomorrow is the finish of the Bibbulmun!

Thursday November 10, 30.6km/19.0mi

Parry Beach Campground (839.0/13m) to Denmark town (862.1/14m) (WA) + 7.5km to Blue Wren Hostel

I left the campground at 6:45am, aiming to catch the beachwalking section at low tide, which was 6:35am.

There were plenty of people out exercising and walking their dogs.

The sunrise over the Southern Ocean looked really cool reflecting over the breaking waves.

The beach was wide here, and many people were driving across it.

The walk along Mazzoletti beach was easy on the firm sand. (It starts off as Parry’s beach, but then changes names to Mazzoletti). I noticed a small body of water to my left, this must’ve been Parry’s inlet, which everyone was concerned about crossing. Ha!

The beach was super wide here and everyone was driving on it to go surfing. There were dozens of people out in the water, they are the little black dots in the photo.

As I walked along, a friendly dog approached me and wanted to follow, so I had to tell him to sit and stay.

He was was a sad dog, he was whimpering and howling at his human who was out surfing the waves. After walking on the beach for 7km, it started to become rocky.

The exit from this beach was rather unique. The stairs were made from round erosion control haybales, and they were pretty steep, so a handline rope was provided as well.

After I got to the top of the stairs, I had a good view behind me of Mazzoletti Beach.

After walking for 30 minutes through the coastal bush I came to the William Bay campsite shelter. I took a nice long break and ate a ton of food since I had packed too much. Just after leaving the shelter, I crested the hilltop and noticed these 2 weird rock formations.

This was a tiny snake, he wasn’t a tiger snake but I’m not sure what kind he was. Likely still poisonous, since I’m in Australia.

I had been hiking in the national park for an hour, but there wasn’t a sign until I got near a developed beach.

Another nice little secluded beach.

I don’t understand why the symbol for beach was two birds, one of which is looking up at the other birds. Usually the symbol is some sort of umbrella in the sand…

The memorial bench to this person had a fantastic plaque. Who doesn’t love pi?

I left the beach area and travelled inland, crossing some farm fields, using stiles to get over the fences.

The final hiking task for the day was to climb Mount Hallowell. It was quite a steep climb, gaining 250m over 1.5km. there were some rocky outcrops along the way, this one was called Monkey Rock. There were some bolts on the rock and I checked out the climbing routes… It looked like difficult slab.

The trail kept climbing up and up, weaving through big boulders and rocks along the way.

Just when I had arrived to the top, a big cloud was quickly coming in and I could see rain in the distance. Looking Southwest:

A minute after I left the summit, the rain had started. I was happy to be back in the trees and protected from the wind, but descending on these big slabs of rock was a little tricky because they were wet and slippery. Wet slab! The 2nd best kind of slab.

It was all downhill to town, and I had entered the outskirts of the little village of Denmark. They had installed some nice benches overlooking Wilson Bay.

I followed the community trail for 6km, and it went through various little parks and sometimes peoples backyards.

I love this street name. I was hoping the cross street was named “Rock”.

I was hiking in a drizzly rain, but this sign made me smile.

I made it to the Blue Wren hostel at 2:30, where I had booked a bunk for the night. While I was waiting for the manager to return, I chatted with the other guests, most of whom were also hiking the Bibbulmun.

It finally felt like a trail town! I hadn’t seen a large group of Bibbulmun hikers since Dwellingup, when I was hiking with that big fun group. I walked over to the IGA (grocery store) and pizza shop. The downtown was only 5 blocks long but really nice.

I returned to the hostel after doing my errands, and relaxed while making dinner with the other guests, and listening to the rain pour down outside. It’s a great night to be indoors!

Wednesday November 9, 36.8km/22.9mi

Castle Rock (802.2/30m) to Parry Beach Campground (839.0/13m) (WA)

I slept in since I didn’t need to start walking until 8am, I used the extra couple hours to read and watch the sea. The hike up and over Castle Rock was easy.

In the short 3km section between my campsite in Peaceful Bay, I saw 8 kangaroos! Apparently a group of kangaroos is called a mob.

Most of the ocean here is really rough and unsafe for swimming, but occasionally I hike by a little protected cove that looks inviting.

I even had a little bit of beach walking just before I got to Peaceful Bay. Sometimes beachwalks can suck, but this one was easy because of the hard & firm sand.

I walked into Peaceful Bay at 8:45, it’s basically a bunch of summer holiday homes in a village.

Since I had 15 minutes before I could get my package (the office opened at 9am), I stopped into the little cafe and got a drink and a grilled cheese.

When I went next door to the office, my box was easy to find, since they had so few of them from other hikers. I stuffed the contents of the box into my food bag, threw out the extra packaging, and hiked out.

For a couple hours, I had a nice easy stroll down an old road through some coastal bush.

Then suddenly the trail…ended.

I was at the spot the guidebook warned about. I had to paddle across this little inlet, using one of the canoes provided by the Bibbulmun track foundation.

The paddling itself was fairly easy, but there was a catch. I took the last canoe from my side of the inlet, and there are supposed to be 3 canoes on each side. So I dropped off my pack, took 2 more canoes from the shed on the other shore, and towed them back to the first shed. That took awhile, since I was paddling with the drag of 2 canoes behind me, plus against the wind and waves. After 45 minutes I was finally done with all those shenanigans, and hiked on into some beautiful rolling countryside.

I probably saw 12-15 more kangaroos in this section, they seem to love the vegetation here.

More ‘Roos!

After an hour of that, I descended to a beach and had a nice walk on the sand for 6km.

The beach was great walking with the hard compacted sand.

The waves are so huge in this ocean, crashing violently just offshore, it’s one of the loudest beaches I have ever been to.

Eventually the beach became a rocky shoreline, so the trail headed inland a little bit and I got some good views. Looking ahead to Quarram Beach.

I was on Quarram Beach for only a few minutes, before heading back up into some even higher hills. Looking back onto Quarram Bay with some nice wildflowers in the foreground:

Looking ahead:

When I got to Boat Harbor Campsite, it was already 3pm, and I still had 10km to my destination, so I did not linger. I quickly refilled my water bottles, signed the trail register, and kept walking. Five minutes later I was at Boat Harbor Beach.

This beach was more annoying to walk on, it was that soft sand that slips under your foot with every step. Fortunately it only lasted 10 minutes and then I was back up on the hillside far above the ocean.

For the next 2 hours I had a lot of little ups and downs on these hills, it was slower going than I would have expected from the map. But at 6:15, I finally arrived to Parry Beach Campground. I walked straight to the caretakers cabin and checked-in, and she said Bibbulmun hikers camp for free! Awesome. I quickly set up my tent on my assigned site, and as I was cooking dinner the couple who were camped next to me invited me over for some food and wine. Double awesome.

John and Sylvia are friends, and are taking a road trip around the country. When they were in town today, they caught a fresh fish (grouper) and bought some salad and chardonnay.

We had some really fun conversation, but by 8pm I was ready to fall asleep. I said goodnight and promptly passed out.

Tuesday November 8, 38.5km/23.9mi

Frankland River Campsite (763.7/38m) to Castle Rock (802.2/30m) (WA)

I wanted to be at the “Land of the Giants” attraction at 9am when they opened, so I left camp at 6am and followed the Frankland River all morning.

I got there just before 9am and I was the second person in line. It was $21 which seemed a little expensive but it also included a second attraction & a bunch of interpretive information.

I love seeing the maps when all the continents were together….Gondwana.

The land of the Giants is an attraction where you walk on a platform 40m above the ground, near the tops of the Tingle trees, and it’s about 800m long. I walked up…

And up…

Even at this height above the ground, the tingle trees are still much taller than me.

40m (130ft) above the ground!

I spent awhile hanging out on the platforms just eyeing all the trees.

Eventually I descended from the platforms and entered the second part of the attraction, “The ancient Empire”.

This was a ground-level walk amongst the bases of a bunch of different Tingle trees.

Some of them had names… this one was “Grandma Tingle”.

Generally where tingle trees grow, the forest understory is full of swordgrass. It’s very sharp.

After an hour, I left the attraction and saw that a coffee truck had been parked out front! I ordered a huge slice of carrot cake and a flat white.

The rest of my morning hiking was less eventful, though I did see a couple more Tingle trees.

Eventually I left the forest and started heading towards the coast again, passing through some farmland along the way.

At 12:30 I was thinking that I was getting hungry, and all of a sudden a bench appeared randomly on the side of the trail. Score! Lunchtime.

After lunch I walked a for couple hours down to Conspicuous beach.

There were a couple other people here, just hanging out in the carpark, looking for the tiger snake that had crawled underneath their car. Neat. I had a nice hike along the ocean for a few minutes before the trail departed back into the dunes.

As I climbed up, up, up onto a high ridge above the beach, I noticed they had installed some erosion control devices into the trail, which made the hiking considerably easier than walking through deep soft sand.

Looking back down on Conspicuous beach where I had just been:

The rest of the afternoon was hiking along a ridge above the ocean.

I took a break at the Rame Head campsite shelter, and while I was having a snack I noticed a Dugite (snake) had just crawled into a hole underneath the sleeping platform of the shelter! Good thing I’m not sleeping here.

I left the shelter at 3:30 and hiked for a couple more hours along the ridges. These flowers seem to love growing in the coastal environment.

I’m always scanning for snakes, so when I spotted this scaly animal, I initially did not think “bobtail lizard”. He’s even sticking out his tongue at me!

There was a nice long boardwalk through a marshy area….

…. Which led to another very short beach section.

The sand dunes here had a ton of weirdly shaped pinnacles on them, I’m not sure if this is caused by wind or water….very strange.

This beach walk was on a rocky beach, so I had fun walking on the slabs of rock.

At 5:30pm I decided to setup camp, as I found a nice flat sheltered spot amongst the bushes near Castle Rock lookout.

There wasn’t any point in hiking further, as I need to pick up my food box in 3.5km at Peaceful Bay campground tomorrow, and their office doesn’t open until 9am. I enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the Southern Sea from my tent.

Monday November 7, 17.8km/11.1mi

Walpole town (745.9/14m) to Frankland River Campsite (763.7/38m) (WA)

After a leisurely morning, I stopped into a cafe for an early lunch and enjoyed a fish n chips. I was in no hurry to depart, since I only had 18km to hike today, so I didn’t leave town until noon. Walpole is tiny, after walking thru their town center park, I had left town.

This whole area was a cat-free zone, the sign about Cats Prohibited made me laugh.

The first stop out of town was at the jetty in Walpole Inlet.

And a couple of km later, Coalmine Beach. It was very windy, so it didn’t feel nearly warm enough to swim.

This sign at the beach was hilarious! So many poles nearby.

I passed by a holiday park, and these fascinating white& pink birds were lounging around. I don’t think they are native, since they weren’t anywhere in my guidebook.

I love that they put the local native language on the interpretive signs as well.

I left the waterfront area and climbed up 200m, to a hilltop with a lookout and tons of Red Tingle trees. Looking back down on Nornalup inlet:

There was a little park to showcase some of the biggest Red Tingle trees. They started big…

And then they became HUGE.

And then I found a friendly local couple to get my photo. I’m a good size reference, 167cm tall.

That tree was about 75m tall, had a girth of 24m, and is over 400 years old. Crazy!

As I walked along, there were tons more Tingles, but none as big as that burned-out one I stood inside of.

The next two hours of the afternoon were on a gently rolling trail thru Jarrah and Karri forest.

I walked into camp at 5pm and met two other hikers there, walking northbound. I had my usual dinner as they recommend other hikes on Tasmania, where I’m headed soon. I’m in my final week here on the Bibbulmun…hope the nice weather continues!

Sunday November 6, 39.7km/24.7mi

Woolbales Campsite (706.2/35m) to Walpole town (745.9/14m) (WA)

I fell asleep so early last night that I was naturally awake at 5am. So might as well start walking….

It was chilly when I started at 5:45am, but at least I didn’t have any more of those deep puddles to wade thru today. As I made my way south towards the ocean the terrain became a little rockier. Granite slabs!

The trail markers are embedded in the rock here.

The view from the top of the rocky dome towards the south.

There were a few wet swampy areas this morning, and fortunately they all had these nice wooden bridges. Why didn’t they have these yesterday?!

The spring wild flowers are in full bloom right now. I don’t know what these purple ones are called but they were everywhere.

The trail meandered among the sandy hilltops, it was a relaxing morning.

After 2 1/2 hours of walking I reached a lookout point. I made it to the ocean!

Looking Southwest to Chatham Island.

Looking southeast towards Long Point.

I descended from the viewpoint and a few minutes later was in the carpark (parking lot). It’s time for some beach walking on Mandalay Beach!

This area was a little more developed for day hikers. Pavement!

The trail used a boardwalk to get down to the beach, it prevents people from walking on the dunes and protects them.

I thought the illustrations on this sign were hilarious.

The beachwalk started off on really soft sand, which was slow going and annoying.

It was near low tide, so I was able to walk on the harder, compact sand.

The waves were enormous. I’m not sure if this was typical for the Southern Ocean or a storm was approaching.

This was a cool juxtaposition of bird footprints and the ripples from the wind.

I walked on the beach for only a kilometre but it was great! Just as I was leaving I even saw a seastack!

The trail left the beach and climbed almost 200 metres up to a ridge. I followed ridgetops for a couple of hours with amazing views down to the ocean below.

More of these purple wildflowers.

The flowers surrounded the trail on both sides in for a while it smelled like a florist, ha!

Near a trail junction, I watched an enormous kangaroo hop across the trail, and then this baby Kangaroo!

I had to climb up to another ridge, and surprisingly they even built stairs. So. Many. Stairs.

The trail kinda reminded me of the PCT because you could see where you were going to be hiking for the next hour, across the wide open landscapes.

Eventually I descended from the ridge and turned away from the coast, crossing the Deep River. My favorite type of bridge…a Swingbridge!

I had a short but very steep climb up to Clare mountain. Since it was almost 1pm I decided to take a longer lunch break at this shelter.

This area is known for a special type of tree called the Red Tingle tree. It is only found along the coast here for the next 100km…very rare.

Another Red Tingle. This one has a girth of 12 metres (39ft). These trees have a shallow root system, as they are adapted to a time when Australia had a much wetter climate millions of years ago.

I descended off the mountain and was on the final stretch into the town of Walpole. The trail parallels a road near here and I was able to stop by the scenic “John Rate lookout”. You can see down into the Nornalup inlet.

The last hour of the day followed an old railroad grade, it was nice easy walking.

This with the 3rd snake I’d seen all day, and the first one that didn’t move out of my way. Like, at all. By now the sunny day had become cloudy and cool, so perhaps he just didn’t have the energy to move. I walked around.

Once I was near town, there was a ton of this boardwalk constructed to get through the swampy areas and streams.

I walked into Walpole at 3:30pm and it looked like it was going to rain, so I went straight to the hostel. I love the name “Tingle All Over”, haha.

It used to be a YHA hostel, but for some reason YHA has sold most of their hostels in the last few years. So now it’s run by a local owner, and it had a great vibe with the other hikers there.

I had my weekly shower, did laundry, and got some dinner from a take-away place down the street. It seems to have started raining (which was not in the forecast), so it’s perfect timing since I’m indoors tonight!

Saturday November 5, 39.5km/24.5mi

Dog Pool Campsite (666.7/56m) to Woolbales Campsite (706.2/35m) (WA)

Everyone in the campsite was awake by 6am, and I started moving at 6:15. After a nice breakfast (“brekkie”) by the stream, I said goodbye and was on my way at 6:45.

Looking down at Dog Pool stream:

Most of the morning was lovely walking on an old road, and for 3 hours I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

Then, the trail sadly departed the road and became a narrow singletrack for the next hour.

It’s much harder to spot snakes on a narrow trail and I was constantly searching the ground for any signs of danger noodles. The trail is generally very sandy and open so at least they would be easier to spot than a dense forest.

I think this flower is called Bottle Brush.

This tree was fascinating, it was completely burned out at the bottom and yet the top was fully green and alive.

The views were very expansive in these coastal plains.

I got to the Mt Chance shelter at 11am and had lunch.

I liked the name of the group that had signed into the book ahead of me… Wander Women!

The shelter is named for the short 125m tall summit behind it, Mt. Chance. I scrambled up the short granite slabs to the top.

Good views to the West!

To the east it looked like there was a fire. Hopefully it’s a planned burn.

The summit had a good phone signal so I updated my journal and then went back down. As I was packing up to go, a woman named Sarah had arrived who I had camped with last night. We chatted for a few minutes, it turns out she is almost 80 years old and is hiking this 100km section southbound! Cool. After an hour of hiking I came to a trail junction to another little summit. It would have had the same view as the summit I was just on, so I skipped this one.

And then the trail quickly went to hell. Initially I tried to skirt around the “puddles” in the trail, but it quickly became evident that this was a waste of time and my feet were still getting wet. So I started hiking straight through the water which was usually shin deep. And mucky…gross.

Occasionally the trail would surface above the water and be nice walking for a few hundred meters.

But it seemed like for a significant portion of the afternoon, the trail was underwater.

This was the only snake I saw all day despite keeping a watchful eye out. It was tiny, only 30cm long and kinda thin… I’m not sure if it was a baby tiger snake or just a different species altogether.

Thankfully I arrived at the Woodbales shelter, my ending point for the day. It was such a joy to behold as it meant the end of walking through gross water and I could dry out my feet.

I was the only one at this campsite, so I set up my bed inside the shelter, made dinner, and then walked up to the little summit behind the shelter. I sat up there for 30 minutes enjoying my dinner.

And watching the sunset.

And to the east was the rising gibbous moon.

As soon as the sun went below the horizon, I walked back down to the shelter, sorted my stuff, and went to bed by 8pm…it was exhausting pushing through water all afternoon.

Friday November 4, 41.0km/25.5mi

Gardner Campsite (625.7/47m) to Dog Pool Campsite (666.7/56m) (WA)

The morning started off comfortably cool and mostly cloudy, and I continued down the mostly flat, sandy path.

After a couple of hours, I came to an old road and crossed its bridge over the Gardner River.

When I left the road and returned to the usual trail, I started to find these short flooded sections. I could usually find a narrow herd-path around the side, but it was slow going.

And then, the snakes started appearing. I saw my first snake yesterday, and today I saw 14! Most of them were lying next to the trail.

Usually the snakes would notice me and move off the trail when I was getting close (2-3m away). This guy just sat there, so while I was able to get a really good photo, it took me awhile to get around him.

After 2 hours of intense focus of scanning the ground for snakes, I was able to take a mental break at the next campsite shelter.

It was 11am, so I decided to have an early lunch and read my book too. This shelter had a ukulele too!

It was next to Maringup Lake, which was a beautiful view.

In the short 100m walk back from the lake, I passed by 2 more snakes. Sheesh. I didn’t get photos of these, they moved quickly off the trail. I left the shelter and for the next 2 hours, I played the game “stick or snake?”. It was like a high stakes game of “Where’s Waldo.

Freakin snakes.

Every 10 minutes I saw a snake, I think most of were Tiger Snakes. Most snakes in Australia are poisonous.

There were a few more swampy areas, fortunately most of these had bridges.

Finally the route joined an old road, and I was able to relax the rest of the afternoon.

I did see a couple more snakes, but on such a wide road, they were far off to the side, and visually easy to spot. I entered this National Park, and had a snack break at its little info kiosk.

The rest of the afternoon was thankfully uneventful, and I cruised along old roads until I got to camp at 5:30pm.

There were many people at the Dog Pool Campsite, 3 were setup in the shelter, and 3 others in tents nearby. We had a campfire (this is the last shelter where they are allowed), and it was a fun group to get to know. Most of them saw “only” 4 or 5 snakes today. Hopefully it’s less snake-y tomorrow!